Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Visit the sitehttp://musawwaratgraffiti.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
ContactCornelia Kleinitz | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | [email protected]
THE MUSAWWARAT GRAFFITI ARCHIVEAFRICAN CULTURAL HERITAGE & THE GLOBALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE
The Musawwarat Graffiti Archive is an interactive open access research archive. It is dedicated to the digital preservation, publication and promotion of African cultural heritage. By sharing scientific knowledge globally it contributes to bridging the digital and knowledge divides.
Graffito depicting the powerful Meroitic lion god Apedemak in one of his manifestations. Among the graffiti of Musawwarat are Meroitic, Greek and Latin inscriptions as well as a wide range of (sometimes scenic) depictions of anthropomorphs and zoomorphs, of architectural features and objects, and Egyptian-derived symbols. These informal graffiti form a rare corpus of data on networks of contact between people and places in the ancient world.
The interactive “Explore” section of the ‘Pictures in Place Database’ allows a virtual walk through the archaeological site by clicking on maps and photos, starting with Complex 300 in the eastern part of the site. This presentation is immediately accessible to non-specialists and provides additional information on spatial relationships to researchers. Currently, the archive contains more than 2,500 photo-graphs as well as 900 drawings.
The graffiti of Musawwarat es Sufra have been systematically identified, documented, catalogued, and classified in great detail. Due to the large data set this work is ongoing. Tracings and detail photographs are linked to each graffito as well as additional information such as its state of preservation and its exact position at the site and on the individual walls.
Since 2007 the Musawwarat Graffiti Project, directed by Cornelia Kleinitz, has been dedicated to the detailed documentation and publication of the unique corpus of ancient graffiti from Musawwarat. In 2011 the ongoing study of these ancient informal inscriptions and images has received a new dynamic by the development of the open access Musawwarat Graffiti Archive, which - among others - has furthered the scholarly analysis of the extensive data set.
The “Explore” presentation can be clicked through to the level of the single blocks where all information about each block and its graffiti is displayed. All information is also accessible by browsing or searching the database. Since the start of the project in early 2011 work has focussed on making accessible one of the most densely marked sectors of the site, Temple 300. Database entries currently describe 1542 graffiti on the 1598 blocks of this temple.
All photos are presented using the digilib image viewer, allowing the user to zoom in and inspect images at the highest resolution even onlow-bandwith connections. All images can also be annotated and referenced for use in online publications.
The Musawwarat Graffiti Archive is made possible with support from these sponsors
Musawwarat es Sufra in a Global Perspective
Open Access Initiatives and the Globalization of Knowledge
Musawwarat es Sufra, located in Sudan, is one of the most recent additions to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. As part of the group entry ‘Archaeological sites of the Island of Meroe’ it is acknowledged as being one of the most intriguing archaeo-logical heritage sites on the African continent. Its temples and other monuments date primarily to the Meroitic period (c. 300BC-AD350) of the kingdom of Kush, one of Africa’s major early states. The Meroitic realm formed an interface between ancient Africa, Egypt, the Greco-Roman Mediterranean and the Near East. Traces of the movement and trans-
Apart from the promotion of the study and the physical and digital preservation of African cultural heritage the Musawwarat Graffiti Archive also encourages scientific collaboration regardless of users’ locations or means. Access to cultural heritage on a global scale is often restricted to members of the Western world. Non-Western as well as non-institutional researchers often find it difficult to gain access to data collections and even research results on cultural heritage, effectively excluding them from studying their/our
formation of ideas and knowledge within the ancient world are manifest in the thousands of graffiti that were incised into the walls of the so-called Great Enclosure, a unique, labyrin-thine building complex forming the centre of the site. This multi-layered archive of images, inscriptions and markings was added to over the past 2300 years. It reflects various aspects of the ever changing life-worlds of the people of the past, and of today. The archive also forms a treasure trove for present seekers of knowledge, be they researchers or members of the inter-ested global public.
past and from meaningfully partaking in the global academic discourse. The Musawwarat Graffiti Archive is con-tributing to bridging the digital and knowledge divides by opening a major research archive, thus helping to connect researchers and research communities. It promotes open access principles based on the ECHO infra-structure and it develops ideas for bringing large bodies of primary data and research results into the global public domain.
African Cultural Heritage Online: the Open Access Musawwarat Graffiti ArchiveThe Musawwarat Graffiti Archive was developed in a collaborative effort by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO) initiative, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Golden Web Foundation. It serves as a case study for the development of a work-bench environment allowing the online publication of large image collections together with related extensive and varied data sets. These are made available for scholarly anal-ysis as well as public appreciation via in an easily accessible web interface. With the ‘Pictures in Place Database’ a solution was developed especially for the integration of
systematic graffiti-focussed informa-tion and of data on the exact spatial contexts in which the pictorial and inscriptional graffiti were created and used. Such space-related data sets are difficult to publish in traditional paper format and thus often neglected in research and publication. The Musaw-warat Graffiti Archive thus presents a multi-facetted approach to the open access publication of intricate visual data. In an ongoing process it aims at making accessible the full corpus of graffiti at Musawwarat, thus providing an exemplary platform for barrier-free research into an extensive collection of primary sources on Africa’s past.
The Musawwarat Graffiti Archive was created by:Concept & Research: Cornelia Kleinitz | HUBTexts & Photography: Cornelia Kleinitz | HUBDatabase Design: Robert Casties | MPIWG, Elisabeth Lindinger | HUBData Entry: Jens Weschenfelder | HUBProgramming: Robert Casties | MPIWG, Amy Stafford | Studio Blixa 6 Graphic Design: Amy Stafford | Studio Blixa 6 | www.blixa6.comProject Management: Simone Rieger | MPIWG
